In recent weeks, millions of people across the United States have been enduring the harsh conditions of Danger Season. A prolonged heat wave has driven ‘feels-like’ temperatures to exceed 100 degrees Fahrenheit in regions including the Midwest, Mid-Atlantic, and Northeast, while approximately half the country faced heat alerts or warnings. As electricity demand surged, grid operators took emergency measures to ensure reliability, while severe storms over the holiday weekend left hundreds of thousands of homes without power.
These events highlight the critical role of electricity during Danger Season—the period from May to October when North America is most vulnerable to extreme weather, including heat, drought, wildfires, and hurricanes. Electricity is essential not just for lighting but for powering air conditioners, fans, and refrigerators for medication, which are crucial for safety during extreme heat. For older adults, young children, those with chronic illnesses, and other medically vulnerable individuals, access to cooling can make the difference between staying safe at home and suffering from serious heat-related illnesses.
These circumstances also point to a larger issue. As the climate warms, there is a heightened reliance on cooling systems to ensure safety, but electricity costs continue to climb. Thus, both the need for and the cost of cooling are rising simultaneously.
For many households, especially those already dealing with high energy burdens, this presents an increasing affordability issue. Paying for electricity has become more than a comfort issue; it is now a matter of health and safety.
To fully understand the issue of affordability, multiple national datasets covering different time periods have been analyzed. These datasets illustrate long-term temperature trends, recent shifts in household electricity costs, and the latest evidence on energy burden and energy insecurity. They reveal how electricity spending during Danger Season has evolved, how cooling demands have grown, how energy burdens are still concentrated among lower-income households, and how affordability is already impacting the ability of people to maintain safe temperatures in their homes.
Overall, these findings suggest that affordability is becoming a crucial aspect of climate resilience. With extreme heat becoming more frequent, the challenge extends beyond access to cooling to whether households can afford to use it.
The cost of cooling a home is increasing
As summers grow hotter across the nation, electricity has become a vital tool for safeguarding health during extreme heat. However, staying cool has its costs. Since 2020, projections indicate that the average household’s electricity expenses during Danger Season will have surged by over 30 percent. This rise is driven by more than inflation. According to findings from the National Energy Assistance Directors Association (NEADA) and the Center for Energy Poverty and Climate (CEPC), the increase in household cooling costs results from rising electricity demand, higher retail electricity prices, ongoing grid infrastructure investments, fuel costs, and broader energy market changes. What once seemed a temporary rise is now becoming the norm.
The need for cooling is growing
Rising electricity bills tell only part of the story. Households now require more cooling than before. The Cooling Degree Days (CDD) from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) is a valuable dataset for understanding this long-term shift. This standard measure, used by climatologists and utilities, estimates how much cooling buildings need. Unlike metrics that merely count extreme heat days, CDD assesses the cumulative need for cooling throughout a season. Since climate trends are generally evaluated over periods of 30 years or more, this 50-year record offers a clear picture of long-term changes. Despite year-to-year variations, the trend is evident: Americans need more cooling today than they did five decades ago.
While the demand for cooling doesn’t necessarily equate to hardship for every household, for families already facing high energy burdens, increased air conditioning needs can result in significantly higher summer electricity bills.
Lower-income households were already struggling with costs
The impact of higher electricity bills and growing cooling needs is not uniform across all households. Lower-income families were already allocating a larger portion of their income to energy costs even before this summer. Examining energy burdens is crucial here. Energy burden represents the share of a household’s income spent on energy bills, with lower-income households experiencing the highest burdens. In this context, lower-income households are defined as those earning 80% or less of their Area Median Income (AMI). AMI is the median income for a specified metropolitan area or county, providing a locally adjusted benchmark for comparing household incomes.
Data from the most recent annual estimates available from the US Department of Energy’s Low-Income Energy Affordability Data (LEAD) Tool reveal that energy burden is significantly higher among lower-income households. Families with lower incomes have less flexibility to manage rising utility bills because energy already constitutes a substantial portion of their budgets. For these households, even small increases in cooling costs can lead to tough choices between paying utility bills and meeting other essential needs.
Affordability is forcing difficult, unsafe choices
Energy burden impacts more than just household budgets; it influences everyday decisions. Data from the Census Bureau collected in late summer 2024 about experiences over the previous 12 months indicate that lower-income households are much more likely to cut spending on necessities like food or medicine to pay energy bills. They are also more likely to keep their homes at temperatures that feel unsafe or unhealthy. Among households earning less than $25,000 annually, over one-quarter reported maintaining temperatures that felt unsafe or unhealthy. As income rises, these hardships become less common, underscoring how affordability increasingly dictates who can safely cool their homes during extreme heat.
Affordability is driving increasing rates of energy insecurity
These challenges related to affordability are becoming more prevalent. Energy insecurity is defined as the inability to adequately meet a household’s basic energy needs. It can manifest as difficulty paying utility bills, maintaining safe indoor temperatures, or ensuring reliable electricity service.
New data indicates that these challenges are affecting a growing number of households. Comparing the 2020 and 2024 Residential Energy Consumption Surveys from the US Energy Information Administration reveals increases across every major indicator measured, including utility disconnection notices, cuts in spending on food or medicine, and an inability to adequately heat or cool the home. Together, these findings suggest that energy affordability is becoming an increasingly significant public health and climate resilience challenge.
Addressing the climate and energy affordability challenge
Fortunately, there are solutions available. Reducing heat-trapping emissions is crucial to limiting the severity and cost of future summers. Investments in weatherization and energy efficiency can lower household energy needs before temperatures rise. Utility bill assistance and stronger protections against utility disconnections can help families remain safe during extreme heat. Community solar, resilience hubs, and distributed energy resources can also aid communities in preparing for, enduring, and recovering from increasingly dangerous summers.
It’s equally important for policymakers and regulators to assess energy decisions through an affordability lens. As electricity demand grows and investments are made to modernize and fortify the electric grid, ensuring that electricity remains affordable, especially for households already facing high energy burdens, will be essential. Affordability is becoming an increasingly vital component of climate resilience, alongside investments in grid reliability, energy efficiency, weatherization, and consumer protections.
The figures in this analysis lead us to important questions. Which lower-income communities face the greatest combined risks from rising cooling needs, high electricity costs, and limited household resources? Where are households already struggling to stay safe during periods of extreme heat? And which policies can ensure affordability keeps pace with a warming climate? As the climate evolves, so must our understanding and solutions.
Because as temperatures reach dangerous levels, access to cooling is no longer just a matter of having air conditioning. It increasingly depends on whether people can afford to use it.
